![]() It’s a pledge of friendship, of support, through bad times. ![]() “Lean On Me” is a love song, but it’s not a standard love song. He wrote “Lean On Me” one day when he was noodling at the piano, running his hands up and down the keyboard, and the phrase popped into his head. But when the “Ain’t No Sunshine” money started rolling in, he bought himself a Wurlitzer. Withers had come up singing and playing acoustic guitar. On the cover of Just As I Am, his debut album, he’s standing outside that factory in Burbank, holding his lunchbox. (It’s a 10, obviously.) Withers kept that factory job for a while even after “Ain’t No Sunshine” came out, convinced that his success would be fleeting. He was 32 by the time he hit with “ Ain’t No Sunshine,” a mystical soul-blues lament that peaked at #2 in 1971. Withers spent years working in an aircraft factory. When he got out, Withers decided he’d try to make it as a songwriter, so he sold his furniture to a co-worker and used the money to move to Los Angeles. ![]() He’d signed up for the Navy at the age of 18, and he’d stayed in the Navy for nine years. Withers was well into his 30s by the time he got famous.
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